The article, "In Age of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less" cites a recent study by Richard Edelman, his Trust Barometer, that found that the number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, since 2008.

Edelman thinks it's a sign of the times and that consumers have to see and hear things in five different places before they believe it. He attributes this skepticism to the financial meltdown that has left us wary of big banks, the government, the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas. (His sentiments, my words.)

the analysis... may be a little misleading. The headline... implies that people are trusting their friends less when making decisions. While that makes great copy, when you click on the chart what you really see is that trust in all forms of media... has dropped dramatically by approximately the same percentages. Trust in Friends/Peers hasn't dropped considerably more versus those other categories."

Singh also pointed out that, "the subject being discussed makes a big difference. For example, I'm not going to trust my friends very much when I'm deciding whether to get open heart surgery. However, if I'm buying running shoes ... advice from my friends will make all the difference.

Personally, I agree with Singh. I find it quite irritating when traditional media outlets use social media indiscriminately.

Want a recent example?

I live in the New York City area and experienced the over hyped "Blizzard of 2010". During the storm, I attempted to get reliable information on the magnitude of the expected snow fall by surfing TV news channels, only to find with distressing frequency interactions along the lines of, "Let's check out Joe Blow's webcam on Staten Island. Joe, what do you see when you look out your window?", or "Visit our Twitter feed for reports from our viewers around the area."

Are you kidding me? I don't give a $#%@! about Joe's yard! - I want a meteorologist with a state-of-the-art Doppler 7000 to give me an expert prediction about the storm.

What I think is happening is that people's sophistication about social media is on the rise. Users are beginning to figure out that: